A POS (Point of Sale) appliance is an EDC (Electronic Data Capture) terminal that a merchant uses at the time and place of a transaction to capture purchaser information from credit cards, debit cards, smart cards, and the like.
It may include a cash register, a bar code reader, an optical scanner, a magnetic stripe reader or the like, and may be on-line to a central computer for, for example, credit checking and inventory updating.
Examples of POS appliances include those supplied by Verifone as the TXO™ and Verix™ terminals.
A support system for the users of POS appliances may include a central help desk, remote from the appliances, to which problems with the appliances can be reported.
A current approach to diagnosing reported problems is to have a set of queries on the central help desk computer which are categorised under a number of headings. These categories may for example include a “Printer Problems” category, a “Card Reader Problems” category, a “Host Communication Problem” category, an “Application Configuration” category, and the like.
A “Printer Problems” category might include a “printer out of paper?” query. A “Host Communication Problem” category might include queries such as “Host phone number not OK?”, “Is external modem supported?”, or “Modem initialisation string?”. An “Application Configuration” category might include queries such as “Are application and operating system compatible?”, “Is transaction supported?”, and “Are card types supported?”.
In use, the helpdesk operator will chose a query from the various query categories which the operator feels may be likely to reveal the problem, and the help desk computer will execute the query by interrogating the POS appliance for the necessary information. The result is then provided to the helpdesk operator. If it does not reveal the problem, the operator selects a further query, and continues in this manner until hopefully the fault is revealed.
A problem with such a helpdesk system is that it is not particularly user-friendly in respect of the helpdesk operator, as it does not help the operator to understand the different steps involved in a diagnosis. The operator just goes through a list of possible queries, and continues until hopefully the error is found. An inexperienced helpdesk operator may not know where or how to start with a diagnosis, and may have difficulty in determining which queries to ask and in what order.
An object of the present invention is to provide a more user-friendly and intuitive helpdesk system and method that allows a helpdesk operator to understand more fully the diagnostic stages involved in determining the problems associated with a POS appliance, and so better understand the different sources of problems that may be encountered.